Gingerbread
by awesomesen
Summary: Run, run, fast as you can... -subaru and arashi and a week-
1. monday

_this story will have seven parts._ _I know, I know - "parron stop writing new stuff!" I can't help it. _**  
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**gingerbread**

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The trains, at least, are still running. Subaru knows this because he has spent the entire day at the station, walking aimlessly listening in to the conversations of strangers (all the same, too, how boring—_did you remember the_ and _what track _and _what time—_), almost like being social, almost like they are talking to him. Even he sometimes wants that. Sometimes. 

He is not the only one that knows that trains still leave Tokyo. Everyone knows it, and everyone is less day by day—trains come in near empty but for emergency crews and doctors, leave full of people and luggage. No one has declared Tokyo a disaster zone yet, but—but they know. Even humans catch on eventually to the end of the world.

He is not the only one of _the_people that know the trains still leave Tokyo. Subaru doesn't know how or why he recognizes her, only that he catches a glimpse of her hair—long, very long, well kept, she's vain about it, everyone knows that, even him—and four hours later, Arashi hasn't moved.

He hasn't, either, of course. At first it was curiosity and then some kind of urge—when is she moving? She must move soon. She'll be gone next time he looks—or the next—or the next—or—and by the end, the sun is setting and she hasn't moved an inch except for once (two hours ago, a little more than two hours ago) when a man bumped into her and she stepped to the side briefly and then made that her new spot.

How annoying. How, how, how annoying. Subaru doesn't get it. _Why doesn't she do anything_? The idiot. The—yeah. Idiot. Fool. Selfish. Tiring. She should move, she has to, eventually—she doesn't, even after four hours, even after four hours of him standing behind her (against a wall), watching her—willing her to move, to do something, to stop—something, whatever it is, it's annoying, he can't stand it—it's like when he tries to quit smoking, sometimes, and all day his fingers jitter and twist into the shape of holding a cigarette—just like that, until he gives in and—

_Oh_, he thinks rather calmly. _I'm obsessing, then_. It's her fault. She's so annoying. So—so—_so fucking annoying_, he thinks, rebelliously, furtive—swearing, that's not for him, but he did it—she drove him to it, the selfish, annoying—_bitch_. Another bad word. Oh god, he thinks. Oh. Hell.

He will fall apart if she doesn't do something soon, so Subaru forces her hand—grabs her from behind (she starts, she twists away, she is all movement and ready to unsheathe her sword, ready to—she makes a movement, reaching for his neck, not to strangle or grab but to _release_, to _unleash_—but there is nothing there, and she falls apart).

"Come on," he says, grabbing her hand and folding it in his—she's smaller than him, that, he thinks, is strange—right, then, Subaru remembers: she's a girl, and I am a man. A difference in size is—

He takes her from the train station, hand in hand, and when he is convinced she will follow him (she does, docile, the fight in her drained, never present to begin with, unable fight without a weapon—she follows him quietly, head bowed and hands folded in front of her, so childish and stupid, that girl), Subaru lets her go and smokes, five or six cigarettes in quick succession, the butts marking a path out behind them, his hands twitching from some sort of withdrawal.

Monday. That is the day Subaru adopts Arashi for his own.


	2. tuesday

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_gravity on me never  
let me down gently  
gravity with me  
never let me go, no no  
gravity_

_i don't pull me down  
i don't pull me down on me._

Sound Check (Gravity) - Gorillaz

* * *

At three or almost four in the morning Subaru discovers that she will not go to sleep. The days of a lavish apartment in Shinjuku are long gone and his has no furniture aside from his bed and kitchen table; Arashi sways in place and will not go to sleep, will not, will not—will. Not. He wants to hit her in a flash of understanding, of satisfaction—you don't hit because you hate a person, you hit them because you need them to change.

Yeah. To change. A way of correction. To hurt someone isn't—it doesn't mean—yeah. Yeah. You just want the best.

She sways in place and eyes his bed warily, doesn't climb in, doesn't sleep. He has no spare bedding and no futon (wouldn't give them to her anyway)—if she wants to sleep, she will sleep on the floor or in the bed, and she won't pick the floor. Not a girl like her. Not someone so—"Why?" she asks. Like that.

"Go to sleep."

"Why..." She doesn't even know what she's asking, does she. Not even a question. The word stretches on forever until Subaru can't stand it anymore.

"It's just a bed."

"...Did you take me here?"

He doesn't know, either, which goes without saying and it annoys him that she has to ask—of course he doesn't know, why would he know, you annoying, stupid—_bitch_. Yes. It's getting easier to think (he doesn't know either, of course—she should know that. But he felt—something, anyway, and that had been—positive or negative, it was an emotion. Towards her. And—).

"If you pass out, I'm not helping you."

But he does, before she passes out, because he still hasn't mastered apathy. She crosses her arms and clutches herself as he walks to his closet and back and back and back. He's kept all the clothes Hokuto ever gave him, and he rolls them and twists them and cuts the bed in half with them, making ramparts and towers.

He gives himself the bigger half, lying over the covers and lighting a cigarette; the wall is high enough that—it's not a wall, he thinks, just clothes—and he remembers he shouldn't smoke in bed anyway—she went to her side at once and when he stands—the ashtray is in the other room, he can't bring himself to leave the butt on the floor even for now—when he stands, he looks at her, and—

She is asleep at once and he watches her with disinterest once he returns, the way she holds onto herself, the way she curls up in the cold, the way he doesn't care.


End file.
